Fireclaws - Search for the Golden

by T. Michael Ford

  “You’re right, they are connected, but only magically, not physically. Xarparion is more than fourteen hundred miles distant from Sky Raven, across the continent. Yet you can travel from one to the other with no more time or trouble than walking across a town street.”

  “It sounds like a truly wondrous place, Ryliss.”

  “It is, Xarparion is the premier wizards’ school on the planet. But five years ago, the forces of the Lifebane surrounded and infiltrated the city. Xarparion fell with a tremendous loss of life; wizards, staff, guards, and teachers died in droves. Many of the students were badly maimed in the hasty evacuation. Some of those young wizards who survived lost arms, legs, and even eyesight like you.”

  “But they’re wizards; couldn’t they just magically make new arms, legs, and eyes?”

  “There are limits to magic, even at the high levels of Xarparion. Andi, the best healers in the world practice there. They can heal what is damaged and even cure diseases, but even they cannot bring back what has been lost.”

  “So there is no hope for me then,” Andea whispered, “even if I miraculously make it to this place.”

  “Hope is what you make of it, Andi. My point is that these children from Xarparion, some of them younger than you, lost so much. But to see them today, you would find no defeat or sadness in them. They are still wizards, and wizards are rare and valuable to society. They still contribute fully to Xarparion and Sky Raven; as a whole, they laugh, they love, and they have good lives. One of my best friends lost an arm in the great battle five years ago, and it hasn’t slowed her down a bit.”

  “The great battle?”

  “Yes, where the Lifebane was ultimately defeated and slain. His great demon and undead armies massed outside the walls of Sky Raven. The Lich met his end in the main courtyard, just inside the gates.”

  “You were there, weren’t you?” the seer whispered breathlessly, cocking her head as if seeing it all replayed exactly as it happened directly from my own thoughts.

  “Yes, I was…that’s why I never want to see anyone associated with demon-kind grow that powerful ever again. The putrid filth, soul degradation, and unbridled evil I saw that day haunt my dreams still. It was a very near thing for our world and every creature on it.”

  Andea was quiet for the span of several minutes, processing the information. Finally, she broke the silence. “Ryliss, I will help you and Sky Raven to the best of my abilities. But you have to make me a solemn promise first.”

  “Which is?”

  Her grip on my hands turned to absolute iron. “You cannot ever let me fall into the hands of Verledn again under any circumstances. I have seen the path, and it would eventually lead to the rise of another great evil. Promise me that you will kill me before you let that happen! I could never count on Kerrik to fulfill an oath such as this. But you are strong and you have an unshakable sense of duty that he does not, at least at this time.”

  “But, Andi, you’re only fourteen…”

  “Promise me, Ryliss! I was born on a working farm, I have no illusions about the fairness of life. Sometimes even a newborn foal or calf has to be put down to save it from future agony. Promise me, or I will find a way to do it on my own just to be certain.”

  She gently raised her hands to my face as if searching for some sigh of acquiescence. I sighed, “Very well, Andea, you have my personal word that I will see you dead before falling into the hands of Verledn’s men.”

  “Thank you, Ryliss.” She exhaled in relief. “I have heard that elves take their vows seriously, you have made the right decision not only for me, but Sky Raven as well.”

  “Andi, what can you tell me about the golden?”

  The seer smiled impishly, displaying a genuine toothy smile for the first time in our conversation. “Again, up until I met you, Ryliss, I had no frame of reference for the golden, just some wild story Kerrik told me about a dying old woman along a road. But now, I am getting glimpses of what you seek. The golden, of course, is the key; however, I sense there are bigger issues well beyond a simple answer to your friends’ slumber that are not clear yet. But I can tell you that you will need my help to complete this quest…we did not meet by pure chance.”

  “Do you have to be so cryptic?”

  Andea spread her hands apologetically. “Sorry, it sort of comes with the job. Imagine it this way, Ryliss. You have a very detailed recipe for the world’s best chocolate cake; all the ingredients listed, mixing order and instructions, baking times and the degree of heat needed. This is all written neatly out on a piece of clean white paper, totally concise and easy to read. Follow me so far?”

  “Ok?”

  “Right. Then someone comes along and rips your piece of paper into a hundred pieces, mixes the shredded parts around randomly, throws away half, and gives you the remainder. How close do you think you would come to accurately reproducing that fabulous chocolate cake using the recipe you now have?”

  “Umm, probably not close at all?”

  “Exactly, that is the kind of information a seer gets, just bits and pieces, never the entire picture. So you ask me a question and I give you my best guess based on what I have seen…of course, they’re cryptic!”

  “But what good does that do me, then?”

  Andi sighed patiently, “Look, Ryliss, what I’m trying to say is, don’t ask me for answers to the big picture; it’s too abstract for me. Maybe someday with lots of practice, I will learn to reconstruct what I see in a more useful form. You’ll just have to take my word for it that a path, where we are working together, is the only way to find the key to helping your friends.”

  “But how?”

  “Use me as Jedaro did…small questions, not big ones. Should we go down the left road or the right road, Andi? I will do my best to concentrate on finding your golden; you just have to ask me the right questions.”

  “I suppose we leave in the morning then.”

  About that time, a bleary-eyed pooka stuck her head out of the tree and remarked, “I think we all need at least a couple hours of sleep before dawn.” Seeing me nod in agreement, she materialized fully and walked over, taking Andea by the arm and guiding her inside. “And you, mistress? We can make room…”

  “No, someone should stay out here and keep an eye on Kerrik.” I watched them leave and stirred the fire down to ashes. There was no point in advertising our whereabouts any more than necessary. Finally, with a yawn, I made the shift to my Jag’uri form and curled up next the sleeping wizard to keep him warm.

  Chapter 9

  Kerrik

  I woke up but didn’t immediately open my eyes. I had slept on the cold hard ground many times in the war and it was usually a recipe for hobbling around stiff and sore for the first couple hours every morning. But that wasn’t what kept me in a sleepy haze, it was that I was amazingly warm and comfortable. I felt a blanket covering me from feet to shoulders, and I was lying on my side using my right arm for support with my left draped over what felt like a large warm, soft pillow. I fought back a yawn but still took a deep breath, the smell of a fragrant breeze through a spring forest seeping into my senses.

  I had just about given myself permission to ease back into a delicious dreamy sleep, when my left hand, which was draped over the warm pillow, registered movement. Breathing, in fact; large rhythmic rises and falls. Cautiously, I ran my hand experimentally along its length feeling silky long hair and strange fleshy bumps spaced evenly in the warm fur. Oh hell! I’m sleeping next to the cat! Finally opening my eyes, I raised my left arm up and well away so that I didn’t touch it any more than necessary.

  As the first fragile edge of the sun’s morning corona was peaking over the horizon and the night’s gloom was slowly thinning, my vision started adjusting. I was working on backing even further away from the Jag’uri, hopelessly tangled up in the blanket over me, when I heard a sound like a low, stuttering cough. Looking beyond my immediate peril, I focused across the dead campfire. A second puma was sitting nearby watchi
ng me with what I immediately interpreted as feline mirth.

  I pulled myself up on one elbow and looked from one to the other. If the sitting puma were Ryliss, she would be up and ordering us about in her efficient manner, not laughing at me. That would mean…I just ran my hand over…oh, I am so dead!

  With a snort, the Jag’uri next to me exploded to her feet, shook violently, and eyed me with cold, violent precision.

  “Sorry,” I said lamely, breaking eye contact and looking down. Ryliss sneezed disdainfully, and then sauntered off into the trees. Naurakka continued to pant happily at my predicament, as I got to my feet and started to fold up the blanket. A few moments later, Ryliss reappeared as the young village girl that I had come to recognize; still plain looking, still unremarkable in every way, and still totally fake in my estimation. This was no more a representation of the Ryliss I was coming to know than was the cat.

  She walked up to me, and placing both hands on her hips, cleared her throat. “Master Bard, we need to talk…”

  “Ryliss, it was totally innocent, I wasn’t trying to be vulgar.”

  Her deep green eyes softened at bit at my distress. “I know…the truth is, for the duration of this trip, we are going to be thrust into these types of predicaments frequently. So I want you to give me your word as a gentleman that you will respect my person, to the extent it is possible. We are already testing the boundaries of what my people would consider scandalous behavior. And if word got out, my father would be duty-bound to hunt you down and slay you painfully. Are we in agreement?”

  “Yes, of course, My Lady.”

  “Good. Rakka informs me that hounds will be back on our trail soon. Thankfully, the human handlers are weaker and less motivated than the hellhounds.”

  “Did you say hellhounds?”

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  Verledn stood at the topmost balcony of his personal tower and watched the work progress on his fortress. It was midmorning, and the smells of cooking, wood fires, and foundry work were starting to come alive down below. Very little of this mattered, of course, past the painstakingly slow progress he was viewing. Yes, the first curtain wall around the entire complex was finished, but it was thin and would never stand up to a concerted siege of any type. It pained him that his creation was still so much of a paper tiger. Most of the barracks areas to the lower left of his viewing were only partially filled. He would have to acquire much more gold to pay even more mercenaries to fill them. On the right side were the slave quarters, where most of his wizard conscripts slept when they weren’t working.

  He sighed and then gritted his teeth angrily as he spotted a blood-red disk forming on the hand-fitted stone directly behind him. Like a picture hung on a wall, it was two dimensional, but at the moment the face of the fire wizard Lebahn was forming in the center.

  “Your pardon, Lord Wizard, I have a report.”

  “For your sake, Lebahn, your efforts had better be more productive than the last set of excuses. Have you captured the prisoners?”

  Lebahn’s visage flickered momentarily, and Verledn could see him puttering around with the demon crystal to get the best angle. “There that’s better. I am pleased to report we have indeed captured three of the four escapees. They had ridden through the night to elude us, but we caught them not an hour ago. A woman and two men; I just finished interrogating them.”

  “And?”

  “Their escape was facilitated by a shape-changing woman known to the fourth escapee, whose name is Kerrik Beratin, a wind wizard formerly in the service of Elcanse in the Great War. He is known to have a sister, but they did not remember a name; the shape shifter’s name is Ryliss. According to the three, Kerrik is dead from a crossbow bolt in the thigh suffered in the escape; however, we recovered no body. They believed the woman was untouched. They also had no idea of this Ryliss’ current whereabouts, My Lord.”

  “If you recovered no body, it’s possible that he received aid from this cabal of individuals that is hiding our seer. Question them further, Lebahn. Find out what local connections this Kerrik might have had, where his home village was, and who else he associated with…”

  The fire mage cleared his throat uneasily. “I’m afraid that won’t be possible, My Lord Wizard.”

  “Explain.”

  “Well, the three traitors didn’t survive the interrogation, My Lord. They were stubborn, and time seemed to be of the essence.” He grinned cockily. “The hellhounds are just finishing their snack now.”

  “One of these days, Lebahn, you will go too far…”

  “Oh, I think not, My Lord, you are already up to your eyeballs in service to my mistress.

  “Bah!” Verledn snarled and unleashed a lightning bolt from his fingertips that branched out like luminescent tree roots into the wall pulverizing part of it to dust and blowing shards of stone in all directions.

  “Temper, My Lord!” Lebahn cackled. “You do realize it’s just a sending, do you not?

  “Aye, I know what it is, Lebahn, and I’m beginning to realize what you are as well. But I will deal with that situation when you return. In the meantime, what leads do you have?”

  “The hellhounds have picked up another trail, well out past the farm where this Kerrik allegedly died. We are following it now, but we are plagued with false trails, and the hellhounds are too stupid not to follow them. Whoever it is has their wits about them. I recommend you pay my mistress’ price and allow me to summon the gargoyle.”

  “Humph…even if I wanted to, I don’t have fifty souls to spare at the moment. I will take counsel in your words and perhaps have the men start collecting some peasants. In the meantime, keep tracking them down.”

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  Ryliss

  Rounding up Daffi and Andi, I had the seer and Kerrik munch on some dried apples while I laid out the plan. Withdrawing my enchanted map from my pack, I laid it out on the ground while we all gathered around. Using a small twig, I gestured at the layout.

  “We are about here, not far from the border and too close for comfort to Verledn’s base of operations. We need to put some space between us and stretch out his supply and command lines. We have basically three options: one, reconnect with the main road back into Elcance, which would take us to the capital in about three weeks. That is probably the most logical course of action for us, especially for finding food and shelter. I am also fairly well-versed in the area having spent a lot of time there tracking down the golden. Two, five days hard travel to the north will take us to Biskitne, a small village in a recessed valley in the Deru hills.”

  Kerrik, who had been examining the map with great interest, interrupted, “This map is fantastic! Even the highest ranking officers in the army have nothing like it. Hell, I doubt if most kings have anything like it! But why would we want to head to this Biskitne? I can’t see anything remarkable about it on this map; it’s not on a major river or coastline. How will going there help us escape?”

  I grinned, “Well, it’s not common knowledge, but there is a Wizard Tower in that sleepy little village. It is a supply point for Xarparion and the easiest way for us to quickly get back to Sky Raven. Three, we can continue the slow trek through these woods for a day, come out the other side to the northeast and try to find a pass through the mountains you see here. That would seem to be the riskiest direction, as I have no idea what we will find there. We also have the issue of limited supplies and weapons.”

  “If I’m interpreting the map distances correctly, Ryliss, even the trip to Biskitne is a lot longer than five days on foot.”

  “Ah, but we will not be on foot, Master Bard, as both Daffi and I have horse forms. We’ll just have to tough it out on the trail. So the real question remains, which way, Andi?” The seer thought a moment, her face twisted in concentration.

  Finally, she relaxed and smiled. “Direction three.”

  “Very well, let’s get mounted up.”

  Chapter 10

  Ryliss

  On the afte
rnoon of the third day, we finally broke out of the scrub woods and rolling hills that had prevented us from moving much past a walk. We had run across an isolated farmstead where I spent some of my small number of gold coins in barter for two old sheepskin pads to keep the weight of our riders from making us too back-sore.

  I also bought a couple pounds of coarsely-cured bacon and some salt. Kerrik’s spirits were quite buoyed by the sight and smell of the bacon, until I informed him it wasn’t for us. Several times during the trip, we had heard baying in the distance, and Naurakka was very busy keeping track of our pursuit. A couple times a day, I would call a halt and return to my Druid form and coax in some deer. After tying strips of bacon to a string, I would get them to do the donkey trick again. Rakka laughingly told me that this seemed to work nearly every time and would usually throw off pursuit for several hours, despite the human handlers’ attempts to keep the hounds on station. Apparently, these hellhounds were very food-oriented and easily distracted; good for us.

  Still, I worried at the tenacity of the pursuit. As far as I know, they hadn’t gotten close enough to see us, so it seemed excessive that they would put so much effort into the chase. The thought that perhaps Verledn had a scrying crystal or that we were being shadowed by some sort of demonic presence crossed my mind. According to our map, we needed to ford a shallow river the next day and then enter a dark, forested area that nestled up to the foothills of the mountains that were our goal. From the map it appeared that there were several passes winding through the peaks that would lead us to safety.

  Andea, true to her story, was very good with horses and was light enough that Daphne scarcely knew she was on her back. The pooka, unlike a real horse that I was mimicking, could still talk in her equine form. The two of them and Kerrik were able to hold a discussion on the trail while I could only plod along mutely. I couldn’t even communicate with the pooka like I could with another horse, because she wasn’t really a horse.

  My thoughts drifted to Somnus and Kaima, and I wondered if I could communicate with them as a horse. They certainly weren’t natural horses, but Lin and Jules talked to them all the time, except when Somnus was being an ass. I would have to try it the next time I was home. Home, the word and thought sounded strange, but in the short five years I had lived there, I had connected with the place and people far more than I ever had in any of the dark elf settlements I had lived in or visited. It surprised me that I missed it as much as I did.